Brands Struggling to Reach Consumers With Push Notifications

Push notifications in iOS are an efficient way to engage with customers almost instantaneously, but only if a consumer has the feature enabled.

New research by direct marketing watchdog the DMA has revealed that 31% of the 1000 UK adult consumers involved in the report said they had never enabled push notifications on their device.

Of this dataset, one in five (21%) were unable to explain what a push notification was, whereas 30% said they simply ‘did not like being notified’ when making the decision to disable push notifications.

The consumers that do have notifications switch on only have a small amount of patience for the feature, with 78% saying they would remove the app or turn off notifications if the messaging was not to their liking.

Craving for customisation

Advanced customisation of notifications is not currently available in iOS, but that has not deterred 73% of respondents stating how they would personalise push if they had the chance.

Based on this evidence, Douglas McDonald, member of the DMA Mobile & Connected Marketing Council and director of Underwired Limited has advised marketers to give push notifications some more serious consideration

“For those brands with apps, push notifications are now an important tool in the customer communications box.”

“It’s still isolated from many companies’ comms strategy and planning. It’s time to make it part of the planned customer journeys alongside email and other methods.”

Scroll down for more insights from the DMA’s Mobile push notifications report in the following infographic.

Simon Holland

Simon is the news and research reporter at Existem. Previously a technology journalist, he now spends his time investigating both future and developing trends in performance marketing whilst producing editorial content for performancein.com.